I couldn't remember everything.
Lord Mersey's voice boomed across the room, echoing against the walls. "Answer the question," he said. "You left the Marcone room with Mr. Phillips and proceeded onto the deck. What happened next?"
His voice wasn't angry or accusatory. What disturbed me more was how much I had heard it today. And how much I could still hear it ringing in my ears every time I left that chamber.
"I…I walked onto the deck. I could hear the water wasn't far below. I started helping to get one of the collapsible rafts ready." I began, my voice sounding tired and beaten. My knuckles gripped the sides of the podium.
How long did this have to go on?
"No, no, no, Mr. Bride!" Lord Mersey shouted, waving his hands as he spoke, slapping the papers on the desk in front of him with each word. He threw the whole lot down and the pages scattered like birds. A court assistant scurried to pick them up.
Lord Mersey rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. The irritation at my incompetence was plain to see.
"He's not up to it, John," one of the five men sitting behind Lord Mersey tutted. He looked at me with as much disdain as I had felt having to look at his toad-like face all day.
"The boy will pull this apart," another man chimed in. He was weasel-like and up until now had hardly seemed interested in anything that happened in this room.
"No, he must get this right," Lord Mersey snapped, snatching the neat pile of notes from the court assistant. The assistant scuttled back to the periphery of the chamber. Lord Mersey pressed his shoulders back and replaced his mask of calm. But I could still feel the hot coals of his eyes burning into me, willing me to get this right. I wished I could shrink away into nothing in front of them. It would have certainly solved their problem.
"He's the only one we have," said Lord Mersey, starting over. My stomach dropped once more. "When was the last time you saw Mr. Phillips, your senior?"
The question was delivered as casually as asking after the weather. But it carried the weight of the ocean.
"In…in our room, the Marconi room," I stammered. I could feel my eyes blinking uncontrollably and I could sense the seething disapproval from Lord Mersey building. I hadn't started out with the confidence he had told me to have.
I rubbed my eye hard, willing the twitch away. It had started since arriving in New York. I thought it had just been fatigue from the sinking, but now the twitch was with me most days.
Lord Mercey gestured with his hand, urging me on.
The images swam in front of my mind. I could feel the water seeping into my court shoes. The only way of convincing myself that I wasn't standing in that freezing water again was by looking down at the dry floor. I must be going mad. Darkly, I thought that it might be a sweet release from having to recall everything that had happened. I was losing a grip on myself again and I knew I wouldn't be able to properly regurgitate whatever story they had fed me.
"What else, Mr. Bride?" Lord Mersey pressed. "What else do you remember?"
"His face," I blurted out, startling the panel.
"What did you say?" The elderly toad probed.
"His face!" I exclaimed in a clear voice. I wondered where that awful, blubbering crying had come from, and looked to the sparse court attendants standing on either side of the chamber. They were staring, dry-eyed, into the center of the room. It was me. I was crying again.
Lord Mersey let his head flop back with an exhausted sigh.
"I remember his face," I sobbed, my words no longer sounding like my own. "I remember his face before they shot him; all I remember is the look on Jack's face."
"This will never do, Mr. Bride," Lord Mersey shouted. The five men from the White Star Line whispered among themselves.
The flash of Jack's face before his death crossed my eyes, and the following sob knocked me to the floor. I propped myself up against the chamber wall, holding my head in my hands as I tried to stem the tears. A wickedly gleeful part of me rejoiced that they might finally see how far they had pushed me. It celebrated that I might be committed to Blackwell Island and forgotten about. But I knew, for perhaps the first time in my life, that I was far too valuable to them to simply let me go.
"John, I think we should give the boy a break for now," said one of the five in a smooth voice. "I'll have a psychologist see him. We need to get him to trial." The voice sounded concerned, but I knew it wasn't for me or for anyone on that ship. It was for them and the White Star Line.
"Very well," Lord Mersey conceded. "Send in the next one; I don't need this spectacle in a court of law." The hands of two court attendants lifted me to my feet and quickly escorted me from the room. I wondered when I would be back for another session to whittle my nerves. Secretly, I worried if I would even make it back at all.